Saturday 7 May 2011 19.05 EDT
First published on Saturday 7 May 2011 19.05 EDT

Anyone for Venice?

Interesting spot among the celeb crowd at Film4's pre-Cannes drinks last week was Venice film festival supremo Marco Mueller. The bespectacled curator was in town scouting projects for his own late-August festival and confided that he was "very impressed" with what he'd found going on in British film. He was also confident that "two or three" big British films that weren't ready for the Croisette would be gracing his Lido by the end of the summer. The biggest "poach" looks like being Andrea Arnold, whose enigmatic four-shot teaser for Wuthering Heights wowed the assembled crowd during a montage of Film4's upcoming slate. Arnold's career was kickstarted by Cannes and its support and awards for Red Road and Fish Tank, but her youthful take on the Brontë classic seems destined for Venice. From what we saw, the film looks earthy - shots of moths and beetles in the grass - and the unknown actor cast as Heathcliff (James Howsoncorrect) looks tremendously charismatic. Also a likely Venice star is another Cannes discovery in Steve McQueen, whose debut, Hunger, won the Caméra d'Or in 2008. His latest is called Shame, and stars Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. The other exciting footage getting its first airing included stylish-looking scenes from Terence Davies's version of Rattigan's TheDeep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.

Great expectations, indeed

Much buzz already attends the release of One Day, the film adapted from David Nicholls's hit novel. Nicholls wrote the screenplay himself, and An Education director Lone Scherfig has brought it to life, with Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess as Emma and Dexter. However, I'm just as excited about Nicholls's script for an adaptation of Great Expectations, which Stephen Woolley is producing for Mike Newell to direct. Filming begins on that in September, with Ralph Fiennes as Magwitch.

Keira's Tolstoy story

Joe Wright is reuniting with his muse Keira Knightley for another literary classic. The Pride and Prejudice and Atonement pair are doing Anna Karenina, shooting in Russia and the UK in the autumn. Cannes juror Jude Law and Aaron Johnson feature in the A-list Brit cast, the stars securing a lavish budget. "There'll be lots of fur hats, don't you worry, and Keira will look exquisite," Wright assures me.